August 7th, 2008

Take a man. Add eye work (unisex glasses if eye wear is needed) Botox. Mix in a bad haircut or unfashionably long hair—if possible a dye job. A little doughy-ness doesn't hurt, either. Have a weakness for turtlenecks and by all means fight aging like it's a battle you can win if you try just a little harder, and there you have it: The winning formula to become a man who looks like an old lesbian.

I worked from home today, starting off with my overdue IDP, and then more on the installation and configuration guide I'm editing.

Words. Words. Words.

During a recent international electronic discussion forum I follow, a woman from the UK said [about the Food Court Musical, I included in this blog entry], "I actually do not understand musicals, but that was so funny!"

To which another poster, a technical writer by day and a "theater person" by night, replied, "To paraphrase a director I had, a musical is a play with emotion and personal stakes that have been heightened to the point that speech is not capable of communicating it. Therefore, singing prevails."

I think that's a beautiful definition.

A.Word.A.Day in explaining what a metaphor is: "When people speak metaphorically, they make a connection between two conceptual domains that, at first glance, don't appear to have much in common with each other. A metaphor is a kind of magical mental changing room, where one thing, for a moment, becomes another, and in that moment is seen in a whole new way."

But what I really like are the examples, one of which was, "Comedian Paul Reiser [once] looked over at his wife breastfeeding their first child and thought to himself, 'What was once an entertainment center has become a juice bar.'"

Today was an all-cardio day for me at the gym, and this is how it played out:

Exercise Type

Minute Duration

Calories Burned

Cardio (Treadmill)

40

493

Cardio (Elliptical)

20

402

Total

60

895

After the gym, Kevin (av8rdude) and I ran by his lawyer's office, where he collected his check for what he made on the sale of his condo.

There was a Starbucks next door, and we slipped in and had one of their new Vivanno drinks, which are billed as a "nourishing blend," trying to sound healthy. I had the Banana Chocolate. It was pretty decent, though the $4.04 price tag probably raised my blood pressure enough to cancel out any supposed health benefit of this drink.

For dinner tonight, I made a delicious combination of brown rice, some Southwest Style Pepper Jack soup, and some garlic and white wine-marinated chicken breasts cut into cubes. That was some good shit right there.

I had every intention of going to Trailer Park Prize Night tonight, and even went so far as shaving, showering, and getting dressed. And then, about ten minutes later, I said to myself, "Self? What are you doing? You don't want to go to that hole."